Police in Littleton, Colorado are investigating a prank call on Thursday that led a SWAT team to raid an online video gamer's office. Heavily armed officers forced a well-known gamer to the ground in what is believed to be a case of "swatting" by an unknown rival gamer.

"This is not a game. It's not an online game. We have real guns and real bullets. There's some potential there for tragedy," Littleton Police Department Chief Doug Stephens told local media.

Nearby schools and businesses were immediately closed and sealed off after a 911 caller said he had shot at least two coworkers and was holding others hostage at the local gaming facility on Wednesday.

"I think we're getting swatted," Jordan Mathewson, who was playing Counter-Strike, said during his Twitch livestream. "What in the world?"

"Put your hands up!" police shouted in the recorded footage of the raid.

"But I was still frightened, you know? Having some guns pointed at you isn't exactly the most common thing," he continued.

The member of The Creatures gaming group said he didn't know "what would drive somebody to do something like that, other than the fact that they get to kinda see the outcome live on the stream. They get to see all this go down right before their eyes and, you know, it's fun to them."

Mathewson said there were 3,000 viewers on his channel when the raid went down Wednesday.

David Kravets
The senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Been doing journalism for so long I remember manual typewriters with real paper. Emaildavid.kravets@arstechnica.com//Twitter@dmkravets